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Wednesday is my favorite day of the week. I wake up, have some breakfast and wait patiently until 2pm when my Local Comic Shop opens so I can go and pick up this weeks comic books. I recently got back into comics after about 15 years thanks to podcasts like iFanboy and Geekscape but the real unsung hero is my Apple Macbook. Without programs like ComicBookLover, Wednesday’s List and iComicsOnSale, I wouldn’t have really gotten back into reading comics.

ComicBookLover

ComicBookLover aims to be the iTunes for digital comics and it comes pretty close. Its laid out in a similar fashion to iTunes with a 3 pane browser on the top, your library on the bottom and your lists on the left. You can also view by cover art. CBL allows you to organize your entire collection by tagging the file with all the relevant information such as issue name, volume, publisher and year. Just like iTunes, it support Smart Lists. This allows you to make a List based on search criteria which I have found invaluable.

Viewing comics has an impressive feature set such as Single, Western or Manga view. You can rotate images on the screen 90 degrees and it supports dual monitors. What I like to do is rotate the screen and turn my Macbook on its side like a book to read. The 13′ widescreen is almost the perfect size of a comic page. Pages are automatic sized based on which view your using and it provides an On-screen display to navigator when using Full Screen mode.

ComicBookLover will set you back $24.95 but if you read digital comics in any form, its well worth it.

Wednesday’s List

Railhead Design’s Wednesday’s List is a one trick pony. It pulls this weeks Diamond shipping list and allows you to print out your Pull List. The interface divides up each publisher in its own section and lists the name, Previews order number and price. Just check the box next to the comics you want and your ready to save, print or email your list. You can even sync with iCal. My favorite part is you can add in your local tax rate and it gives you a running tally for the comics you selected. I also print and bring my list with me so I know what I’m getting and what its going to cost me.

Wednesday’s List costs $7 and is a Universal Binary.

iComicsOnSale

iComicsOnSale or iCOS is a Dashboard widget. iCOS is similar to Wednesday’s List in that it allows you to print out weekly pull lists. I prefer iCOS because you can view a summary of each comic, cover, price, pages and writer/artist information. They even have a featured comic page highlighting one comic each week. That being said, I don’t use iCOS for two reasons. One its a widget and would work so much better an actually program and two its very unstable for me. It uses an insane amount of memory some times and it eats my pull list. The latest version is still beta so its to be expected but I’ve moved to Wednesday’ List for my Pull Lists because of this.

iComicsOnSale is free and they have just launched a new website which lists this weeks new comics with full descriptions.

iFanboy Podcast

While iFanboy is not an application it is a weekly podcast and video podcast that I can’t live without. And technically I subscribe to both podcasts using iTunes but thats nether here nor there. iFanboy do a audio podcast called the Pick of the Week where they pick one comic for that week and discuss it along with other books that were released. It comes out every Sunday and I listen to it on my way to pick up my comics every Wednesday. Then when I get home, there video podcast is waiting for me. The video podcast differs from the audio as they focus on topics and not weekly books.

So definitely check there podcast out. I look forward to it each week and its always the first I listen to and watch.

I got to see 300 over the weekend. I’ve been waiting along time for this and its the first movie since 2005 I’ve gone to see in the theaters. The movie was amazing and was well worth the wait. I can truly say you have never seen another movie like it. I bought the graphic novel of 300 a few months back but have held off reading it since the movie was right around the corner. Now thats its now, I think I may take the weekend and read it just to get a feel just how close of an adaptation it was. The next day I have off during the week, I’m going to go see it at an IMAX theater.

They killed Captain America! You Bastards!

New publisher Xider plans on releasing a DS game bases on Jeff Smiths epic Bone comic this year. Right now the title will be released in Europe with no word on a US release.

During a podcast this week, legendary comics creator Neal Adams announced that he and Frank Miller are both working together on a new Batman mini-series titled Batman: Odyssey. This is awesome news but I’m still alittle wary with Frank Miller. After Dark Knight Returns, Miller has been a little, umm, less than award winning with his Batman stories.

cough*dark knight strikes back*cough*all-star batman*cough.

Regardless I’ll be buying it when the 6 to 8 part series comes out. No word on when it should start but I would imagine sometimes in the next few months.

Remember Comic Collector Live! from back in November? Yup the same one that was suppose to be released in December. Well, its still not released but in the past few weeks some interesting things have started to happen. First off Joe Butler, CEO of Comic Collector Live!, has posted a screenshot of the application. And that brings us to number 2, their forums are live.

Today I got an email that I will be included in the next batch of beta testers. This should be next week on February 15th. During the signup, I was asked if I would be willing to sign an NDA but according to the email, I will be able to post of the public forums about the software. There will also be another beta signup on the weekend of February 16th so keep an eye on the forums.